Amazon will stop selling Nest smart home devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-wont-sell-nest-products-from-google-2018-3?IR=T <comment><USER2> The problem here isn't so much that Amazon is going to hurt Google. Google will survive. But we only hear about this story because Google is who Amazon is attacking (today).

The bigger problem is that Amazon has set themselves up as the global arbiter of commerce, acting as a relatively neutral marketplace matching buyers to sellers worldwide, replacing many or most of the smaller commerce hubs and marketplaces that used to exist.

But once in that position, they exercise control over which products can be sold with the explicit intention of destroying competitors, replacing what would otherwise be a consumer favorite with their own inferior (according to market preference) alternate.

Everyone talks about monopolists and moral hazard and market manipulation, but Amazon seems to be the only modern company with the unique combination of dominance, confidence, and poor executive judgment to actually make it a consistent and overt company policy.

<comment><USER3> Google is no angel themselves. What they did to Windows Phone is no different than Amazon's behavior. I'd imagine Windows Phone might as well died even if there were Google apps on it. But by actively preventing third-parties from porting their services to WP, Google intentionally tried to kill it. Now they now practically own the global market of smartphones. Not saying any of this is right, but I've less empathy for them.

<comment><USER4> >But by actively preventing third-parties from porting their services to WP

[citation needed]

The only history i'm aware of with google blocking app development on windows phone is when they sent C&Ds to people developing apps that stripped all the ads off youtube and played background audio. They also consistently take down and block android apps that violate the TOS in this way, and i don't see anybody saying that google is trying to kill android.

<comment><USER5> Hahaha

[https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4624706/google-blocks- win...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4624706/google-blocks-window-phone- youtube-app)

[https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4625502/microsoft- respond...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4625502/microsoft-responds-to- google-youtube-windows-phone-block)

Google pulls this same bs with consoles as well, both PS4 and Xbox One (S/X) have a shitty HTML5 app that just doesn't fit well with rest of the system.

<comment><USER6> Really? I've used the ps4 YouTube app a bunch to watch videos, and movies purchased from the play store. My phone can cast to it as well. Seems to work as well as the Netflix app. I've had more issues with the ps4 store app honestly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is creating an edge in the market where independent merchants and services can operate and their independence is their virtue.

For an example, Google has Chromecast/YouTube, Amazon has Amazon Fire/Prime Video, and they're less and less interoperable year upon year. This war creates an edge that Roku can squeeze into, which has support for every major vendor except Apple.

I find myself using Target and Walmart's websites more than ever before, not due to some moralistic protest, but simply because they're now more competitive and have products Amazon don't stock (like Google Home Mini for one example).

I find it interesting from a business perspective that Amazon chooses to push out competition, whereas most major retailers stock both own brand and branded products side by side, and profit no matter what the consumer selects.

I wonder when Alibaba US and EU will open. If Alibaba will sell anything and Amazon is protectionist, I can see that being Alibaba's edge.

<comment><USER8> When all the stores price match I have no reason to shop online unless I can't find it in store. Amazon app is used almost exclusively to price match on my phone. Saved $1000's

<comment><USER9> I'll pay more to not drive to a brick and mortar at this point. I don't want to get in my car and go to Best Buy or Target or whatever and _hope_ they're stocking what I want, when I _know_ I can get it in two days from Amazon or another online retailer. I've been bitten by that too many times. I sometimes miss browsing in person, but I don't miss wasting my time.

<comment><USER10> Let's not forget that Amazon Prime has gotten worse with longer delivery periods even when they say it's 2 days. It has been coming later. And this is outside the holidays.

<comment><USER11> Really? That's not been my anecdotal experience but would be curious to hear if this is a common experience. I have had trouble with Amazon's own courier, but have largely mitigated that issue by asking Amazon customer service to use other couriers.

<comment><USER12> Its gotten really bad for me and a lot of my friends, lots of prime deliveries on little stuff take 4-5 days, and a lot of items say one day at checkout then a day later when i get the shipping notice, It's ridiculous. Especially so since i live under 2 miles from an Amazon warehouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Read the story about Amazon authorizing fake Chromecast devices to be sold, while blocking the real ones. Mind you the devices look exactly the same (minus better bandwidth.) Read some of the reviews from folks buying the imitation, knowing it wasn't the real deal, but nevertheless bought them because "where else could they buy from?". Those comments and now this make me wonder how strong Amazon has become to decide what consumers can buy or not.

</comment><comment><USER14> How is this not illegal? If google took amazon off their search engine, what would happen?

<comment><USER15> it's not illegal for Google to block Amazon's app store from Google play

<comment><USER16> Very few people seem to remember Google started this little war with blocking access to Google Apps on Amazon devices and blocking their app store on Google Play equipped devices.

It is weird though because a couple months ago I thought they had announced they had come to some agreement, and now it seems to be escalating again.

<comment><USER17> Didn't Amazon start this by not allowing Chromecast to be sold on their platform?

<comment><USER16> Chromecasts can't be set up on Amazon devices such as the Kindle Fire, because Google prohibits Google Apps from being installed on Android forks. Therefore, Google was refusing to permit compatibility, functionally, with Amazon's devices. It appears that Amazon attempted to negotiate with Google over compatibility issues, and didn't get anywhere, and hence, chose to not sell devices which were intentionally blocked from being used with their tablets. (And of course, they did similar with Apple TV for the same reason.)

There's no technical reason Chromecasts can't be set up by Kindle Fire devices, it's an intentionally-implemented block by Google.

<comment><USER18> Amazon's fork of Android is not a platform Google is obligated to support. Amazon chooses not to include Chromecast support in their Amazon Video Android app

<comment><USER19> It should also be noted that Amazon's fork of Android, with the exception of the Linux Kernel, is closed source. They're not even a very good open source citizen as I don't think they've contributed anything back to AOSP.

<comment><USER20> That's an unfair statement in the great scheme of open source. When you fork the Android Open Source Project you only get a backbone version of the OS. You start at level 0. Google keeps all its custom proprietary and key technologies closed (rightfully). Amazon is keeping its customization closed as well.

As far as contributing back to the AOSP, that's another area where Google's iron grip on Android shows. You can report bugs and help to patch things, but there's no actual way to contribute anything meaningful to the roadmap.

<comment><USER19> What you fail to realize is that a lot of Android OEM's contribute code back to AOSP. That is being a good open source citizen. Amazon has yet to contribute anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Amazon is a very smart company that invests heavily in research and development to stay ahead and loved by people.

Amazon will continue to stay ahead of monopoly calls as long as they don't make moves like this. Monopolies can benefit for some time such as AT&T with software/labs/modern applications (C++) wiring for telecom, Microsoft with Windows desktop and getting people on the internet, Apple with the smart phone, Amazon with online purchasing, Google with search, cable/telco providers and broadband access etc. But once these companies start pushing too hard on the monopoly levers, blocking competitors, actively breaking competitors products/software/standards, blocking out fair markets, then they start to have problems and maybe will get broken up. AT&T was broken up, Microsoft got slowed considerably resulting in Apple/Google rising, Amazon and Google need to keep it fair or else it will get more and more heated.

Moves like blocking competitors or competing products, rather than just making better products, are troubling and signs that the some people in charge there are taking cheap ways out to gain short term advantage. Capitalism only works well when there are fair markets and competition, otherwise it is big fish oligarchies of companies that works for noone controlling everything.

</comment><comment><USER22> The more ruthless strategy would be to continue to _sell_ Nest products but _ship_ only malfunctioning counterfeits.

<comment><USER23> That is what they do for Chromecast, [https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=chromecast](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=chromecast)

<comment><USER24> Wow, that is unbelievable and embarrassing that they allow that. With Prime shipping!

<comment><USER25> They do manage to keep the counterfeiters off their house brands, so they definitely _can_ control counterfeits if they like. Too bad they do not care.

<comment><USER26> Product quality is horrible on Amazon. AliExpress seems to be as good, if not better, with more consistent listings and possibly a better search.

<comment><USER27> I've found AliExpress to be pretty nice, you're skipping an entire layer of sketchy arbitrage resellers. I've only bought industrial / electronic components from them there though, so my experience is limited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As someone who has been shopping on Amazon since the late 1990s I have recently stopped buying anything branded on there anyway, or at least anything branded where I care about receiving real OEM products. Still a fan overall but one too many knock-off products for me.

After a few years of using Amazon pretty much exclusively for everything then going back to other sites for branded items, I have been pleasantly surprised how much better "all the other" online stores have gotten at fast free shipping and reliable service.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't see why this would make anyone thinks this is illegal as it doesn't stop anyone from buying Google Home products. It isn't as though Best Buy is selling Amazon products and Apple stopped selling nest in their retail stores as well.

At this point, Alexa works nicely with my Nest thermostat. If they break that, then I will be mighty annoyed because I will have to reach into my pocket to change the temperature instead of just blurting out the desired temperature of my abode.

<comment><USER30> Would it be okay for Google to remove Amazon from their search engine given that nothing stops people from trying Amazon.com on their browser?

<comment><USER31> To be precise, changing it to aliexpress would be compareable with the chromecast/nest situation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is usually the beginning of lots of bad things. When a company with such a monopoly starts banning competitors to promote their own products, it's clear that their customers aren't at the core of their engine. You should never 'be evil' to your own customers for short-term profit gain.

<comment><USER33> Come on! Trade wars are good. Amazon will win. It's easy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> When giants create walled gardens, we all lose.

</comment><comment><USER15> somebody from Amazon want to say where the customer obsession is that in blocking product ts that have good reviews?

</comment><comment><USER35> Hopefully they will sell knockoffs from China.

</comment><comment><USER36> They also don't/won't sell Chromecast product.

This is the danger of vertical integration. Once upon a time the US government did built and used antitrust and antimonopoly legislation.

</comment><comment><USER37> The US needs laws and a DOJ that can put an end to this kind of market power abuse. What Google and Amazon do to each other publicly they do daily to millions of individuals and small businesses that are too weak to retaliate.

</comment><comment><USER38> The problem is that these players are just so big, that's why we read about. The poor little shop down the street that is bullied by Amazon has no way of voicing their problems. Maybe it's just me, but I have been avoiding making Amazon the first stop when I buy something, and it's difficult because they are so omnipresent. But once I bought a painting from China which never arrived, probably counterfeit and Amazon never reimbursed me. Since then I am not a big Amazon fan anymore and stories like this make me wonder what options there are to bring a bit more diversity into this market?

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm going to repeat the sentiment of a post I made in another place (about websites sharing PII) -What aspect of trade and commerce regulation is not being applied here, that we have a tool in the armory for, in the body of the regulator?

What would you like a competent trade regulator to do here?

I'm naive, but I'd like them to tell amazon to f __k off out of this behaviour and penalise them significantly. I think either a shop has a giant sign on the door "we don't sell NEST" or not. Simply not providing it, when in other ways its in competition with the suppliers of NEST feels like trade discrimination for predatory outcomes. Supplying competitive items, including forged items puts you in a very strange place.

Apple stores don't sell windows PCs, this is understood. If Apple established a general purpose computing outlet, supplied PCs but decided not to stock Dell or HP (note, not that Dell or HP refused to supply: Apple decided not to stock) then I'd say the same thing. If Dell or HP didn't stock to Apple stores, and if Google refuses to stock to Amazon, then the beef is with the supply side, not the distribution side. Same logic, different direction.

</comment><comment><USER40> On the bright side, for people worried about monopolies and corporations having too much power, this severely hurts Amazon's brand. They really are a much less useful site when instead of being "the place where you can buy anything" they are "the place where you can buy Amazon products, and a few other things too".

</comment><comment><USER41> How is that legal? Microsoft took on antitrust lawsuits for bundling its browser with its OS. This seems much worse.

</comment><comment><USER42> Smacks of monopolistic behavior from Amazon

</comment><comment><USER43> Mr. Anti-trust has been waiting for Amazon I believe. These childish moves will just speed that up.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is this legal?

</comment><comment><USER45> It's almost as if when you get companies as large as countries, they start having trade wars.

</comment><comment><USER46> I wonder whether Amazon accounts for this properly. If someone asked them to remove a competitors products, how much money would they demand? They'd have to calculate the damage this does their brand. Do they calculate in this case?

</comment><comment><USER47> This is because Google removing youtube app from Fire devices.

</comment><comment><USER48> well done everyone. we have made amazon the gatekeeper of the consumer market. don't make Baron Amazon angry or he will have you run out of town.

</comment><comment><USER49> I wonder how much damage to Amazon's bottom line Google could do by simply suppressing it from its search results.

<comment><USER50> That would be cutting the nose to spite the face.

<comment><USER51> I assume he was talking about non-paid search results in which case: how so?

It's no like you're going to change your search engine to Bing because Google stopped showing organic search results for Amazon.

I just searched for e.g. "Acer Predator Helios 300" and Amazon is second non- paid result.

I would imagine that's the case for a lot of searches and not being in search results would hurt them a lot.

And to be clear: I think it should be illegal for Google to selectively and anti-competitively tweak search results just as it should be illegal for Amazon to selectively and anti-competitively refuse to sell products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I have no problem with this. Free market. If you want Nest products buy them from the Google Store ([https://store.google.com/category/home_entertainment](https://store.google.com/category/home_entertainment)). Amazon is not required nor should they be to sell competitors products.

<comment><USER53> Just because something is legal, doesn't mean that we as consumers must like it.

<comment><USER52> I'm a consumer as well. I actually just bought a Nest thermostat and the Google Store experience is just as good as Amazon. Free shipping. I don't get the complaining.

<comment><USER9> The big problem is the lack of interoperability that this encourages. No Amazon Prime in Chromecast. No Google Play on Amazon Fire. No integration with Alexa and Nest. The petty squabbles hurt the customers' experience.

<comment><USER54> Wait, there was Alexa Nest integration. Was it pulled?

<comment><USER55> Alexa can control Nest, yes: [https://nest.com/support/article/Nest-and- Amazon-Alexa](https://nest.com/support/article/Nest-and-Amazon-Alexa). That skill would be hard to get rid of, unless Amazon explicitly forbade access to Nest APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> ten bucks you will still be able to buy fake nests on amazon

and any fake or pirated app on google play

<comment><USER19> The fake Nest will do so much more, though. When it's not being used by a botnet to DDOS sites it's cryptomining Monero in its downtime.

<comment><USER56> great ideas! laughed so hard woke people nearby

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> No big loss, as those devices aren't smart to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER58> It's almost like they are asking for government regulation.

</comment><comment><USER59> That something of such dubious "value" would be subject to this kind of competition between giants is shocking to me.

Maybe I'm just a paranoiac, but given the choice of Amazon, or Google having mics/cameras in my home, I would choose neither. I can't think of a company I would trust to do that, and yet even people sensitive to privacy concerns on one hand seem blinded by the most petty convenience offered by these devices.

 _The stakes are huge. Both Amazon and Google are building out a new voice- powered operating system that can control everything in your life — from your lights to your garage door to the music and video you stream._

That's... terrifying.

<comment><USER60> You have a voice powered operating system in your pocket with any modern cell phone. Sure, you can trigger it off using a software switch but do you really trust that?

Apparently enough people trust it that they keep buying the latest phone models year after year.

Anyone who is terrified by this technological shift should at least be cognizant that you are already basically recorded in some way whenever you go out in public in any major city.

This is just the next shift.

<comment><USER59> I can't control anything beyond my home, but that's an ancient fact of life. I can monitor what's being sent and received by my phone or computers, but Alexa or whatever Google has?

This is more than the "next shift" and I can feel the water getting too hot for this frog.

<comment><USER61> what is the difference between your computer's https traffic and Alexas? you can record both and decipher neither (unless you're very clever)

<comment><USER62> The difference is that I have near total control of my computer's https traffic, whereas I don't have hardy any control over Alexa's.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Aviation safety: Transport comparisons - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons <comment><USER3> It kinda bothers me how much safer cars are than walking and cycling, given that most of these deaths are probably caused by cars. ('Caused' not necessarily meaning the accident was the drivers fault, but the death being due to the car being big and made from metal vs. humans being soft and squishy.)

<comment><USER4> Roads are basically "killing people here is ok as long as you follow few simple rules" zones. It's insane.

If I told people "I'm going to shoot my gun in the city from time to time - <USER2> you don't want to die please step away when I light this red laser sight" and then did exactly that and blamed people for not avoiding it - that wouldn't fly. But cars are so convenient it's allowed.

<comment><USER5> What you're describing is basically what happens in France during hunting season in the countryside. Luckily, the most frequent victims are the hunters themselves, but sometimes random hikers too. "But we had put up a sign that there was a hunting session in the forest!" seems to be a valid defense most of the time.

<comment><USER6> "What happens is, men put on bright red hats, and they go out in the woods, and they shoot at each other. There's no penalty for this, and it's a lot of fun. Once in a while someone even shoots a deer!"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyoSLOlglw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyoSLOlglw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Commercial aviation is super-safe. General aviation is pretty dangerous. The statistics don't make much sense without those broken apart.

<comment><USER8> Does anyone know why that's the case? Is it just that piston engines (and single-engine planes) are less reliable than commercial planes with redundant jet engines?

<comment><USER9> The engines aren't the big difference. It's the operating procedures in commercial aviation that are much different. If I step into a single engine Cessna in my private time, I'm allowed to fly with almost no equipment, very little reserve fuel, no plan for an alternate airport, in shitty weather all by myself.

Now if I step into a plane with passengers (even if it's the same small Cessna), suddenly I'm no longer allowed to fly single pilot IFR operations without autopilot, need much higher fuel reserves, need to plan an alternate, check weather requirements and have done a 6-monthly checkflight and training. And for most airplanes I would also need a co-pilot, so there are two people monitoring everything.

Most small airplane crashes are not due to engine or equipment failure, mostly it's pilot error, and that's where all the extra procedures in commercial aviation really help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Deaths per KM is 60x lower when flying rather than driving a car. Even for short haul flights, flying is considerably less deadly than driving the same distance.

<comment><USER11> Wouldn't it be more reasonable to measure per travel occasion instead? When thinking about car travel, the type of road also matters, as does the rest of the surroundings. True for airplane travel as well, but only arrival/departure seems to matter most there.

<comment><USER12> I think per travel time would be better. "Trips" in air and automobiles tend to be of very different average durations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm surprised to see buses listed as being much safer per journey than trains. I guess that's just because "per journey" is a rather meaningless metric. Train journeys must be longer than bus journeys on average. However, even when you compare bus vs train on a death per billion km base, the bus is much safer (0.4 vs 0.6). Is it because on average buses travel slower than trains? How accurate are these numbers?

<comment><USER14> indeed, per-journey is entirely meaningless, per-hour is the correct measure of risk.

<comment><USER15> A journey seems like a meaningful unit of work here. Sometimes the start or end of a journey is more dangerous. The decision to even start journey would look at the per journey risk perhaps. Think of space launches, as an extreme example. Risk per distance or per hour, if you consider orbiting for a while, could be low but risk per journey quite high.

<comment><USER14> The point is the different modes have entirely different profiles.

You don't fly to the supermarket, or walk to an exotic holiday location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a Wikipedia tangent article called Micromorts which is "unit of risk defined as one-in-a-million chance of death." from a particular activity.

Travel section [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is the kind of chat that gives statistics a bad name. How does it make any sense to compare deaths per journey on foot to skydiving? What even defines a journey on foot? Why would you include the number of kilometers for the space shuttle, which is dominated by the arbitrary safe time spent in orbit, but not for skydiving? It also makes air travel look more dangerous by combining commercial and non-commercial air travel, while making cars look safer by separating out motorcycles. Some rigor would make this more honest.

</comment><comment><USER18> Considering most daily (commuting, grocery shopping) trips are either very short or slow due to traffic, I fail to see how this fact is interesting at all.

<comment><USER19> I could imagine people have a small background process thinking « i'm taking my car to go to the office, how much chances do i have to make it safe to the end » every time they take their car. And same goes for air trips: « i'm taking the plane to SF, am i going to die ? »

Distance travelled probably is a second thought compared to the concept of actually having a trip.

<comment><USER20> In a way your are comparing apples to oranges unless you can choose between either mode of transport for the same trip. Trying to directly compare car and plane journeys doesn't really make sense. Cars vs buses vs suburban trains, or planes vs high-speed trains are better comparisons.

For example, comparing the risk of flying or taking the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka is a fair comparison. But you would probably not choose to drive that journey.

Interestingly around 50% of car accidents occur within 5 miles of the individuals home which is barely double the length of an airport runway!

Number of trips may be a better risk measure when comparing plane flights as most crashes occur on take off or landing. The actual distance traveled is probably irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yes, because air travel have less trips but quite longer. Title is as fair as me saying that space shuttle is safer than walking per billion km.

</comment><comment><USER14> The pedal-cycle, and many of the walking deaths should perhaps be included in the 'car' deaths, since that is usually the cause.

</comment><comment><USER22> Telling quote from that article:

> Aviation industry insurers base their calculations on the deaths per journey > statistic while the aviation industry itself generally uses the deaths per > kilometre statistic in press releases.

</comment><comment><USER23> From the article: "The first two statistics are computed for typical travels for respective forms of transport, so they cannot be used directly to compare risks related to different forms of transport in a particular travel 'from A to B'."

</comment><comment><USER24> Why post this? It's not a secret.

What is more worrying is the emissions of air traffic, which is enormous.

If I remember well, a single seat in an air plane is equivalent to a single car, per unit of distance. So it's like accelerated travel, meaning if you move a person 1000 km by air, it's equivalent to riding that person 1000km with a single car. It's the same emissions per distance, except it's done between 8 and 10 times faster (not considering takeoff).

Imagine replacing a single airplane of 100 passengers with 100 cars who don't share passengers.

<comment><USER25> Harassment & intimidation of pedestrians & cyclists per billion car journeys is substantially more than per billion air journeys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The fact the discussion is about a table on Wikipedia, an encyclopedia, means we are at a stupid level.

Which fits why we'd care about 'journeys' over anything meaningful.

But if we pretend there's something to recover here, lets look at the source

"The risks of travel Archived September 7, 2001, at the Wayback Machine. The site cites the source as an October 2000 article by Roger Ford in the magazine Modern Railways and based on a DETR survey.

Data would be at least 20 years old, from a random website allegedly from a Railways magazine allegedly from a DETR survey.

</comment><comment><USER27> Sure, if you count 5 minute drives to get cigarettes

<comment><USER14> Exactly, the per-hour rate is obviously the most meaningful, and then the per- km rate which in some sense includes benefit/risk.

Per-trip is nonsense, since the the different modes entail completely different trip lengths and distances.

<comment><USER28> If you're trying to figure out whether it's safer do drive somewhere than to fly, the only metric that is relevant is deaths per unit of distance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> That's because when a car crashes it's not typically travelling at 500mph with 250 people on board.

<comment><USER29> Phrased another way, given the figures of 40 for cars and 117 for planes, unless everyone on a flight all travelled to the airport together in no more than 3 cars there's a higher risk of death on the way to the airport than on the flight itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not sure if this is a meaningful metric. Much better to compare the deaths per traveled distance.

</comment><comment><USER31> Yet the research is all about self driving cars.

</comment><comment><USER32> How is this even remotely interesting? Car journeys are far more frequent and shorter than airplane journeys. It doesn't mean anything.

</comment><comment><USER33> The difference is control. For _me_ [0] the probability of death in an airplane is higher than the chance of death by car - whether I'm a pedestrian or driving.

[0] Of course I _could_ be wrong -- but I really don't think so

<comment><USER34> The problem here is that everybody thinks that they are a better than average driver.</comment></comment>


The Pirate Bay Dancing for Firefox Bypasses National IP & DNS Blocks - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5863932/the-pirate-bay-dancing-for-firefox-bypasses-national-ip-and-dns-blocks <comment><USER2> Or you could change your DNS server to point to 184.108.40.206.

Half the geeks in Denmark have done so, since they instituted our national Child Porn filter* here a couple of years ago.

*Despite the name the filter does not block Child Porn, at least people get caught with it all the time. It does however block the Pirate Bay as well as Dutch company leasing fork lifts, to be fair they are no doubt under the age of 18 and they are some very, very sexy fork lifts.

<comment><USER3> If you value privacy this is maybe not the best route to take.

You're using GMail/G+, I assume. Now a machine that might very well be easily identified (probably with some heuristics, the harder the more people share your address) as belonging to a specific google user id. And you just started telling Google _every single domain you visit_.

Maybe they throw it away. Maybe you've got nothing to hide (..). I wouldn't recommend that as a decent option to any geek or non-geek though.

<comment><USER4> That's true, and I have been concerned about that too. On the other hand, unless you block doubleclick, AdSense, Google analytics, G+ and whatnot, Google can track you across most sites anyway, apart from analyzing your Gmail content.

Google's DNS service at least makes pretty strict privacy promises that are easier to believe and easier to understand than all the incredibly complicated advertising related don't track stuff. And their DNS servers are really fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one that worries them solving a OSI layer 4 problem with a layer 7 application? I mean Firefox is nice in all but what about the rest of client apps relies on a traditional DNS gateway?

<comment><USER6> It's a stopgap. The underlying problem of securing IP/TCP and DNS against government tampering is much harder. People are working on it, but meantime it's great that there are workarounds.

<comment><USER7> _People are working on it_

Oh? What's the state of the art about this now? What are some good projects?

<comment><USER6> I don't follow it closely enough to say. Check out <http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan> \- while they're mostly talking about it and not doing much, there's regularly links there to other various projects. I don't expect much to come out of the Reddit discussions directly, but it's a useful place to keep an eye on what is happening elsewhere.

Don't expect a quick solution - until/unless censorship in more places get significantly worse, this is still largely fringe stuff that doesn't see a huge amount of real work invested in it. And don't necessarily expect a single solution. It'll be years before we get to a stage where there's anything resembling a "standard" system for this.

<comment><USER7> I think this comment on that subreddit reflect my opinion of the 'darknetplan':

 _What I think you have here is a group of kids with a very very basic entry level knowledge of networking let along WAN routing and network topologies. Maybe some of them have loaded ddwrt or tomato onto a wrt54g and thought they were a ccie, but it looks like a lot of 'hey woman this is a good idea to stick it to comcast and verizon!' and not a whole lot of actual engineering or planning._

<comment><USER6> That's what you get when you have an open community that thousands of people sign up to.

That is why I think it is more interesting as a place that aggregates links about other projects than as a project in itself. It's a decent place for getting an idea what is going on elsewhere (in the open at least). Not so much if you're looking for a community that's actually implementing something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> johnx123-up TL;DR: Automatic proxy extension for FF [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-pi...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-piratebay-dancing/) Note that extension page has poor feedback.

</comment><comment><USER8> What are the upsides and/or downside of using this instead of just using Tor?

<comment><USER9> No encryption or anonymity. It should be faster than Tor though.</comment></comment>


Coronavirus – UK scientists were slow to sound the alarm - <AUTHOR> https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci/special-report-johnson-listened-to-his-scientists-about-coronavirus-but-they-were-slow-to-sound-the-alarm-idUKKBN21P1X8 <comment><USER2> The UK government sacks science advisors for speaking out. It also routinely ignore their advise.

The current government are particularly bad at this, promoting pseudoscience and sacking anyone who isn't 110% aligned to their political point of view.

Under those circumstances, you cannot blame scientists for not speaking out loudly enough. It's inaccurate, it's unfair, it's counterproductive. It's also exactly what I'd personally expect from politicians like the current government.

If you have "had enough of experts" and you take no action on their written report saying 100k people are going to die, you can't come back and blame them when people start dying.</comment>


After 11 years Linksys releases new WRT router, developed for use with OpenWRT - <AUTHOR> http://www.linksys.com/en-us/wrt-wireless-router

<comment><USER2> far to expensive for being really successful</comment>


Belt: A Handful Of Tools For PHP Developers - <AUTHOR> http://longren.io/belt-a-handful-of-tools-for-php-developers/

<comment><USER3> Looks like there's several useful, utility functions exposed by Belt. Might consider using it.

One criticism. There appears to be many 1 to 1 equivalents to existing PHP functions. For instance:

      <?php Belt::max([1, 2, 3]); // 3 ?>

Does the same thing as the built-in max() function:

      <?php max(array(2, 5, 4)); // 5 ?>

The Belt::is* functions seem to have many direct equivalents to the built-in PHP is_* functions like is_array, is_null, is_numeric, etc. The Belt::indexOf() function appears to be the equivalent of array_search() - <USER2> array_search() being the better function, as it has an additional third parameter to control strict type checking.

If there _is_ a substantive difference between these functions it should be documented.</comment>


Ask HN: Who are the experts that you follow religiously in your niche(s)? - <AUTHOR> I'm keen to hear about people who have a small but very loyal group of followers in their niche. I guess the equivalent of people like patio11 (Patrick McKenzie, https://www.kalzumeus.com) but in other verticals. <comment><USER2> * Life advice type stuff - Tim Urban ([http://waitbutwhy.com/](http://waitbutwhy.com/)), Eric Barker ([http://www.bakadesuyo.com/](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/))

* Personal Finance - Mr Money Moustache ([http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)), Afford Anything ([http://affordanything.com/](http://affordanything.com/))

* Laravel (PHP) - Laracasts ([https://laracasts.com/](https://laracasts.com/)), Taylor Otwell ([https://twitter.com/taylorotwell](https://twitter.com/taylorotwell))

* YouTube music cover artists/producers - Kurt Schneider ([https://www.youtube.com/user/KurtHugoSchneider](https://www.youtube.com/user/KurtHugoSchneider)), Sam Tsui ([https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSamTsui](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSamTsui)), Madilyn Bailey ([https://www.youtube.com/user/MadilynBailey](https://www.youtube.com/user/MadilynBailey)), Tyler Ward ([https://www.youtube.com/user/TylerWardMusic](https://www.youtube.com/user/TylerWardMusic)), Alex Goot ([https://www.youtube.com/user/gootmusic](https://www.youtube.com/user/gootmusic)), Against the Current ([https://www.youtube.com/user/againstthecurrentNY](https://www.youtube.com/user/againstthecurrentNY)), a few others.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> \- Life advice type stuff: Mark Manson ([https://www.markmanson.net](https://www.markmanson.net)), Alain de Botton ([https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel](https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel))

\- Photography/Film making: Philip Bloom ([http://www.philipbloom.net/](http://www.philipbloom.net/))

\- Tech: DHH/Jason Fried/Basecamp ([https://m.signalvnoise.com/](https://m.signalvnoise.com/))</comment>


The CEO's CEO - <AUTHOR> http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/27/the-ceos-ceo/ <comment><USER2> As it took a small amount of searching, here's more info about the company (Magnet) mentioned at the end of the article: [http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/04/27/alfred- chuang...](http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/04/27/alfred-chuang- attracts-andreessen-horowitz-with-new-company-magnet/)

And their site: <http://magnet.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Ben Horowitz should release a mixtape - his blog always has an awesome semi- business-related rap song.</comment>


Announcing "Exploring ES6" - <AUTHOR> http://www.2ality.com/2015/06/announcing-exploring-es6.html

<comment><USER2> I've already read most of the blog posts that make up the bulk of this book, but I'll still be buying the book to support Axel's work, and you should too. You won't be disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you care about Javascript at all, this is a definite insta-buy.

Axel is one of those rare people who combine a truly deep knowledge about tech stuff with the ability to speak and write about it in a way that's accessible and at the right level of abstraction.

</comment><comment><USER4> Considering how many ppl that now use mobile phones to surf the world wide web and that mobile phone's usually don't auto-upgrade their browser, and that we still need to polyfill ES5 features, I wonder how many years it will take until ES6 can be safely used without first "compiling" it to the ES5 standard.

<comment><USER5> I find this rather convenient - it strengthens the argument for considering languages other than ES6 that also compile to ES5 (Clojure, Scala, PureScript, TypeScript, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks to be a great book.

I'm curious what the motivation is for some authors lately to make the whole book available free while making it available for sale?

Does it help with publicity or anything or is this mostly a gesture of generosity?

<comment><USER7> It's the equivalent of open-source, but for knowledge.

It's like: "Here's the content for free, if you like it, support it by buying the ebook"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is fantastic. Thanks Axel!

<comment><USER9> Indeed! Love the blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hallelujah.</comment>


Introducing Pint, the new build system for Grunt.js - <AUTHOR> https://www.codefellows.org/blogs/introducing-pint-the-new-build-system-for-grunt-js

<comment><USER2> this is s great idea, separating concerns in your tasks is just as important as in your code...</comment>


Does Anyone Collect Old Emails? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/opinion/memory-collections.html <comment><USER2> I'm the "historian" of the family. I capture vacations, edit recap videos, and have online and offline back ups of it all. Soon I'll begin digitizing our old scrap books so they too can be persevered. As of now I have a meaningful photo collection that goes back to 2002. Apple Photo does a nice job showing these to me in memories.

I had saved dozens of voicemails from my family as to persevere their voices, knowing one day I'd never hear them again. Sadly, I didn't save them locally and so they are now gone.

Emails I can still get to, archived in the gmail account I continue to use today. But one day, that account may go the way of Thisbe voicemails. It "feels" preserved but I have no true backup. And unlike a letter that you read and think "yep, this will be meaningful to me one day" so you save it, I've never actively saved a special email.

Ditto to digital plane and concert tickets.

I'd be curious what people here on HN do for digital scrapbooking. I'm sure there is a better way.

</comment><comment><USER3> My father passed away last year, and I have every single email ever written to him or from him. That's only thanks to being the "computer guy" in the family and a chaotic number of overlapping backups (in time). It's an invaluable treasure.

Nowadays, with Gmail and people collecting their data on their own, that's not an issue. But many of the old "non native digital" generation didn't preserve data at all.</comment>


Why are embedded systems software developers getting a D- in C? - <AUTHOR> http://www.embedded.com/222300586

<comment><USER2> That quiz ranged from silly curiosities to actual common mistakes.

I really dislike questions like "Most portable", etc where you have to answer what you know they want you to rather than say "I don't know how good all compiler compliance is in this respect, I suspect most do it fine, but c-compilers vary widely in quality, would you really like me to go research the standard and find out how good compliance is with respect to this behavior?"

Portability is only a concern for a subset of embedded programmers, whereas most of the other questions are a concern for most people.

Ditto for the multithreading operation item (Although I suppose most embedded programmers have ISRs at least to deal with).

In general, the author of the article is completely misinterpreting the test results which answer:

How well are embedded programmers at passing a test which involves esoteric declarations, overly detailed knowledge about compiler compliance and general portability questions probably in excess of what you worry about in any embedded design position, and otherwise designed to be beyond the experience of most practitioners in the field?

The use of a grade school grading scheme for the test is juvenile at best. They are VASTLY underrating the embedded developer pool.

For single platform coders, especially working on largely modern code, 6/10 is a fine score.

People who write for single platforms have no reason to be good at the portability questions. People who write for single platforms have no reason to be good at the compiler compliance questions. People who do not work on old code without "don't be tricky" condemnations have no reason to have memorized esoteric declarations of C variables which aren't commonly used.

Anyone who wanted 80-100% scores for MOST embedded positions would be completely wasting their companies money on overly expensive engineers. Only companies which have a multi-threaded legacy codeset which is designed to be compiled on unknown systems, running on multiple processor machines actually needs all the knowledge the test tests for, and if the company has good code reviews, such as all the "oh no" cases the article writer put out there, only SOME of the staff needs to know all these things, the rest can learn them in code reviews.

<comment><USER3> You beat me to it. The one I got wrong: I said _most_ ANSI C compilers supported _volatile const_ , not _all_. I guess I get a B+. Another question: "which expression resets the least significant bit in the variable". "Reset"? That means "clear", right? I got it right, because only one of the expressions actually changed the value of the variable.

In the whole survey, I found one question that was actually relevant and specific to writing C in embedded environments: when do you declare a variable _volatile_. The answer was " _All of the above_ ".

So yeah, not a good quiz.

There is one thing Hacker News has to learn from this article: silly little quizzes like this have spectacular PR value relative to the amount of effort they take to generate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Possible answer to the post title: Their quiz-taking webapp is terrible. You can't retake the quiz or review previous questions, and can only try each question once, and if you go back and choose a different radio button as an answer for a previous question, it answers the current question instead (basically throwing away your answer).

So maybe people just couldn't use their damn webapp.

Several of their questions:

Which of the following is the most portable way to declare a C preprocessor constant for the number of seconds in a (non-leap) calendar year?

        #define SECONDS_PER_YEAR 60 * 60 * 24 * 365
        #define SECONDS_PER_YEAR 60 * 60 * 24 * 365;
        #define SECONDS_PER_YEAR (60 * 60 * 24 * 365UL)
        #define SECONDS_PER_YEAR (60 * 60 * 24 * 365)

Which of the following is the most flexible way to declare a C preprocessor macro that takes two arguments and returns the smaller of their two values?

        #define MIN(A, B) ((A) < (B) ? (A) : (B))
        #define MIN(A, B) { if (A < B) A; else B; }
        #define MIN(A, B) ((A < B) ? A : B)
        #define MIN(A, B) A < B ? A : B;

Which of the following constructs can be used to create a portable infinite loop in C?

        while (1) { ... }
        for (;;) { ... }
        loop: ... goto loop;
        All of the above

And then they asked a question which says "what was the intended effect of [some terribly misleading line of C]" and I became fed up, because I have no idea what the intent was, even if I could figure out the actual behaviour.

<comment><USER2> I think their test is best described "If you're not looking up the answers to half of these, you're a shitty, arrogant, and dangerous embedded programmer because you are going to make mistakes, and those mistakes are likely going to be subtle"

<comment><USER3> I didn't see a lot of questions here that needed "looking up".

Most embedded C devs know what "volatile" does, because if you get that wrong your program crashes.

Very few developers know how to craft hygenic cpp macros, but since the question didn't ask about hygiene, I wouldn't expect anyone to feel like they should "look it up". You kind of either know it or you don't.

If anything, the problem with this quiz is that it was far too superficial.

<comment><USER2> 1\. C Compiler Compliance question

2\. Behavior of UL on a non-32 bit system according to modern standards and the compliance of compilers to that standard

and

3\. That the declaration of a pointer to a constant int array was actually that. This is a prime case for using C-Decl or whatever the name of the program is that is mentioned in K&R, (or at least some googling).

All three of these should be looked up. If you have experience with a particular system that uses the last item a lot, then you possibly should not be looking that up. The other two items most assuredly should be looked up. Very very few people have the experience of writing code that works on all sorts of systems using processors of differing word size while compiling on modern compilers. Only those few souls shouldn't be looking up the answers to #1 and #2

<comment><USER3> The compiler compliance question would be good to look up if it was easy to look up. It is in fact just a bad question (I got it wrong, saying "most" where they expected "all").

Embedded developers don't usually need to look up word size issues; it's hard to do your day to day job if you don't know what an "int" is. Nevertheless, that issue actually has very little to do with the question, which you answer simply by choosing the constant that is most specific about its storage requirements.

If you don't know how const works, you probably don't use const much; keeping code const-correct (a waste of time, for what it's worth) drills this stuff into you pretty quickly. Again, it's not a great embedded dev question, but it assessess what it means to assess: whether you know how const works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm. I got 9/10, and the one I got wrong wasn't the one I expected to get wrong. It was also one that in some sense "doesn't matter," but I'm still slightly embarrassed.

An interesting quiz, certainly. The problem is that the article contains no suggestions for the question asked: why?

<comment><USER6> May I suggest an answer. I started in computer engineering and have done embedded systems programming, in assembler though. Later I switched to software engineering and got a CS degree. In my experience there is generally very little proper CS in actual computer engineering education. Computer engineering is well founded theoretically and well taught generally; except when it comes to programming.

(Well, thinking about it, where do you find proper programming education?!)

(By the way I've never programmed in C - got 7/10 ?!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this just a public online quiz that could be taken by anyone? Who is to say that the majority of people that took it are embedded systems software developers and not highschoolers?

</comment><comment><USER8> There are only 10 questions, you can't review your questions before final submission of the test, some of the questions are pretty silly, and some of the terminology is questionable.

I think these kinds of "standardized" tests only make sense when the results are normalized against the population of test takers. That most embedded software developers received a D- only tells us that a combination of the performance of the test and the performance of the test taker was poor.

</comment><comment><USER9> If C is proving too hard, perhaps they should use Lisp for embedded systems ala <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1052858>

<comment><USER10> I chose #define SECONDS_PER_YEAR (60 * 60 * 24 * 365) instead of #define SECONDS_PER_YEAR (60 * 60 * 24 * 365UL)

I realised that 365UL would make 16-bit machines happy. I haven't worked on such one from a long time.

I also make a mistake on int (*a)[10], and I had no idea about "volatile const".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've got 7/10 - I'm a poor "C" programmer.</comment>


Telescopic Text (Click to expand) - <AUTHOR> http://www.telescopictext.com

<comment><USER2> Nice hack. I can see this being useful in places where space is constrained, such as embedded user interfaces. The implementation in CSS is also interesting. Upvoted to try to get it to the attention of others.</comment>


PHPMailer RCE - <AUTHOR> https://legalhackers.com/advisories/PHPMailer-Exploit-Remote-Code-Exec-CVE-2016-10033-Vuln.html <comment><USER2> No details on what the actual issue was, but I think it's fixed in this commit[1]. Seems like the escapeshellargs addition is the important bit.

 _Sigh_

It seems a bit... odd... to try and embargo/withhold information about a vulnerability when the fix is publicly available on their github for anybody to see.

1\. [https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/commit/4835657cd639fb...](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/commit/4835657cd639fbd09afd33307cef164edf807cdc)

<comment><USER3> That added call to escapeshellarg sanitizes the "From" address before passing it to PHP's mail() function as an additional parameter. That function will invoke a preconfigured executable (sendmail or a compatible wrapper) and pass that parameter to it along with the rest of the email data. It is worth noting that:

1) PHPMailer can be configured to send mail through raw SMTP, by directly invoking sendmail, or by calling PHP's mail() function. The changes in this commit only affect the last mode.

2) The "From" address is typically chosen by the site operator/server administrator, not customizable by a site visitor. I have built sites with "share this page with a friend" functionality that sent email from one given email address to another, but this practice seems to have fallen out of favour when SPF became popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems to come from the From email field: [https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/compare/v5.2.17...v5....](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/compare/v5.2.17...v5.2.18)

More details here: [https://www.saotn.org/exploit-phps-mail-get-remote-code- exec...](https://www.saotn.org/exploit-phps-mail-get-remote-code-execution/)

PHP mail doc: [http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php](http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php)

A function that allows to pass arbitrary flags to a command line, what could go wrong... :)

        mail('email@example.com', 'the subject', 'the message', null, '-firstname.lastname@example.com');

</comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone needs this:

A script for finding vulnerable versions of PHPMailer on a server:

[https://gist.github.com/cebe/d0f5631b432c520a2e6f6be8beddf11...](https://gist.github.com/cebe/d0f5631b432c520a2e6f6be8beddf116)

Finds also really old versions like 2.0.4.

<comment><USER6> Find is a powerful tool:

        find /var/www -name 'class.phpmailer.php' -print -exec grep -ni '%s["'\''], $this->Sender' {} \;

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I understand, only implementations using "sendmail" (ie. not mail() or SMTP) are affected.

<comment><USER3> That's not correct, the added escapeshellarg() call is inside the mailSend() function, which sends mail through php's mail(). See [1].

[1]: [https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/blame/4835657cd639fbd...](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/blame/4835657cd639fbd09afd33307cef164edf807cdc/class.phpmailer.php#L1438-L1449)

<comment><USER8> But, if something comes into the mail server via SMTP, it's gonna be protected by the mail servers own defenses. Unless the MTA also has a similar vulnerability, it wouldn't be dangerous in the SMTP case. Right? Or are you saying just the PHP mail() function is similarly exploitable?

<comment><USER3> The parent post said "only implementations using sendmail (ie. not mail() or SMTP) are affected".

From my reading of the code, "only implementations using mail() (ie. not sendmail or SMTP) are affected".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lasts Longer (2.0) - <AUTHOR> http://www.asymco.com/2020/03/18/lasts-longer-2-0/ <comment><USER2> Skimming through the numbers in the article[1] linked to from here, it's very interesting to see the dynamic that Apple has managed to create around depreciation.

A 2 year old iPhone can still be traded-in at roughly 50% of the value (whether to Apple or a third-party). The effect that this creates is that it becomes quite reasonable to buy the latest iPhone every two years after trade- in. I'm sure this has a big impact on new device sales, one of the factors as to why Apple beats records every year.

On the flip-side, I believe the reason they are able to do this, as the article here notes, is that their phones just last long (hardware/software). My iPhone 8 is not very old, but I'm not planning to stop using it for another 2-3 years at least (unless it shatters). In some ways, this reminds me of ThinkPads, just in terms of how long they can serve their purpose.

I'm honestly getting kind of "bored" of Apple devices, but I fear Android devices may not have the same solid 5 - 7 years of support, and as is evident from this article, trade-in value.

[1] [https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/cell-phone-depreciation- repo...](https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/cell-phone-depreciation- report-2019-2020)

<comment><USER3> The major android phones (including Google's) only have 2-3 years of support usually. I'm not sure if that also follows with Android One devices. That said, if you're careful with your selection, you can get a repackaged AOSP (e.g. LineageOS) for your hardware and get extended support out of that (unfortunately my Samsung Galaxy S6 is a particular blend of components that never seems to be supported).

I actually wouldn't be adverse to buying yearly support for my phone through something like LineageOS if it was available, in case someone thinks they can make a go of that business. There's a lot of older Android phones out there that are really only missing good support to be usable. Especially the o es that support easy battery replacement.

<comment><USER4> Also worth noting that the pixel 3, the phone with the highest drops, had extremely deep discounts associated with Google Fi. At one point you could get one for free. That surely affected the prices on the used market. Of course, the fact that Android phones age less well is probably a factor too.

<comment><USER5> There's also the factor that Google subsidizes Android phones because they profit from you using the phone to view ads (and buy apps). Apple of court profits from you buying apps. Apple users buy more apps. Not sure which users view/click more ads.

<comment><USER3> Why is Android subsedize but iOS boy? When is the last time someone paid for iOS or an update to it? The play store functions to make money for Google exactly the same way the app store does for Apple.

Apple makes more money from their app store (about twice as much it seems[1]), but it's not correct to imply Apple makes money from their app store but Google doesn't.

1; [https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/11/as-usual-apples- ap...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/11/as-usual-apples-app-store- revenue-leads-google-pla.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looking at the Apple's showcase for their newest OSX version, Catalina [1], you see it's mostly about some consumer subscription services and integrating with other Apple devices. Also some pretty cynical data lock-in helper applications. There's nothing in there that is relevant for me, doing professional work or doing music stuff as a hobby.

1: [https://www.apple.com/macos/catalina/](https://www.apple.com/macos/catalina/)

</comment><comment><USER7> People commonly misunderstand the value proposition of smartphones. They spend $500 a year for service, but view spending $1,000 for a top of line phone that maximizes the value of that service as excessive, even when that phone only costs $250 a year in depreciation. So instead they buy a $500 phone, costing $150 a year in depreciation, with a worse screen, camera, cpu, etc that they use for hours every single day.

<comment><USER5> What am I misunderstanding about paying $100/yr less for something that serves my needs?

Does iPhone make my phone calls more phoney?

<comment><USER8> If all you do is make phone calls, then of course not. But for many people, their phone is their main general computing device. Everything from light photo editing to games to social media.

I am an Android user but I like buying products once and using them until they die. I have a pixel 2 that I got new less than 2 years ago that will be reaching EOL soon, which is really surreal. Buying an iPhone that can last 5+ years sounds like a real benefit -- and would actually save me a lot of money over the long term even though it costs more than 1.5x as much as my pixel. That sounds like a real benefit for me personally, and I may be switching to iPhone next, if only for their excellent history of long term support (I prefer Android's software)

<comment><USER5> It doesn't last 5 years if you drop it on concrete (maybe newer phones do) or wash it on laundry.

There are risk-resuction benefits to only expecting 2-3 years from your phone. Especially if you are a heavy user of your phone and subject to (cough) battery degradation and CPU throttling.

Pixel 2 is also $150 refurb in excellent condition, so thank you whoever is buying it new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a strong network effect for phones. This seems like a smart way for Apple to maintain its market positioning as a premium offering, while enabling growth of its market share amongst people who can't afford their new phones, thus making their network more valuable.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is a few important things to note here before people jumping into conclusions "Flagship ( or not Flagship ) Android dropped in value roughly twice as fast as Apple's "

First thing being Android vendors _Choose_ to devalue their phone faster. The Trade in "Value" is not _only_ governed by the Market "perceived" value, but how much it was still _wholesaling_ at the end of specific period of time. This is by and large a Vendor's decision.

If a Samsung S20 was Retailing $699 but wholesaling at $599 giving retail $100 profits, but at the end of the period drop the price to $599 but wholesaling at $449, giving additional profits ( $50+ ) to clear out stocks. No firm will buy your 2nd hand S20 for anywhere close to $449, despite its retail price is still going for $599.

Giving 2nd hand phone a 80% discount of Wholesale price, you end up with at best $360. ( Assuming perfect condition ), All of a sudden your phone only worth half of its price you bought it for.

( The above numbers are for illustration only )

Compared to Apple _extremely_ stringent pricing and minimal margin to retailers. Apple prefer to give a package bonus if you achieve your sales target. Something Samsung has also been following in recent years. The wholesale pricing of iPhone hasn't drop much at all. And hence their 2nd hand value tends to be higher.

The question then obviously comes to why dont Android vendors keep their wholesaling price higher. For a few reasons, they need to give higher profits to retailer to help them push for sales. A sales will need higher commission. As far as I know, no Android Vendor command the same market power as Apple. Trying to keep Wholesaling price up is basically giving other Android Vendor opportunities for market share. Android can switch brands, iPhone users switch models.

Second being Apple's Supply Chain Management is a Just in Time operational marvel that no one has yet been able to copy. At the end of the cycle when it is hard to judge supply and demand, you will have Phone sitting in warehouse that either do not get sold and zero cash returns, or lower the wholesaling price and try to clear it out so you have better cash flow.</comment>


E-Mail Security in the Wake of Petraeus - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/11/e-mail_security.html <comment><USER2> What is the difference between a warrant and a court order? Both presumably have judicial oversight, so is it just a difference in the standard required to issue one?

This reminds me of an experience I had several years ago. My sweet grandma fell prey to a scam where someone called her, impersonating me, and said I was in trouble in a foreign country and needed money. She sent some money via Western Union (or a comparable service, I don't remember which one) to my name, and the scammer picked the money up. To do this the scammer needed ID under my name. I called up the company and asked to see a copy of the ID that was used, since I wanted to know if any of my documents had been compromised.

The company said they wouldn't release that information without a subpoena, which seemed reasonable to me (for all they knew, I was an attacker trying to steal someone else's ID). But I couldn't find any way of getting a court order of any kind. It seemed reasonable to me that I should have standing to see what ID was used to impersonate me and steal money from my grandmother, but I couldn't find any options for actually obtaining it.

In this situation, I would have loved a way to obtain a court order for this information.

<comment><USER3> Certain types of requests by law only require an "administrative subpoena" -- Federal agencies basically are given the discretion by Congress to determine when they are necessary.

Typically, they are used to establish facts needed to support a search warrant. For example, the police may subpoena a utility to obtain electricity usage when investigating a marijuana grower. Using that information, they can obtain phone data and eventually get a search warrant to search the physical location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm still confused about this whole thing. What did he do that he needed to resign for? As far as I can tell, he had an affair, which isn't exactly uncommon, and probably has zero influence on how he worked in his job.

<comment><USER5> This whole saga is hilarious for me - I live in South Africa. Our president was involved in a rape case just before he was elected. He got the charges dropped because of a mysterious set of audio recordings that were classified yet somehow proved him entirely innocent. Trouble is, nobody has yet been able to get hold of these recordings even under subpoena from the constitutional courts. The guy also has a number of wives, was involved in a number of arms deals, and is currently building a $30 million house in the middle of nowhere and having a billion dollar freeway project begun to make sure he can get to his house in style. We also have a 'textbook fiasco' where a large portion of public schools in a province did not receive textbooks at all. Nobody in the education accepts blame or will step down over this. The monopoly government controlled electricity provider is increasing electricity charges by over 15% per year and is still losing money by paying out massive bonuses to employees. We have had illegal strikes resulting in multiple deaths caused by police shooting fleeing strikers in the back as they ran away. Nobody in government has stepped down over any of this.

This is common in many democracies across the world.

The fact that someone in your government is forced to step down over something as basic as having an affair (our president has had a number of them over the last 4 years) shows that USA is still pretty high up as far as government morals go. Bravo!

<comment><USER6> Politicians in the USA have higher standards for civil servants than they do for themselves. There are numerous elected officials that have had multiple affairs, multiple convictions for some serious crimes, and/or very questionable ethic violations, but they'll happily keep their job.

<comment><USER5> True enough, I concede the point... politicians are probably just as corrupt anywhere you go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't personally buy that the solution to this is to "rein in the FBI" if we're talking about the security of the CIA chief vis-a-vis the FBI. The point is that a motivated attacker could do all these things to a high value target. It might sound far-fetched but having damaging personal information about a CIA chief is very valuable. I don't condone judging people by their worst actions, but I think that the government would rather the FBI found out this information than someone else.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes another reason why I still bother to maintain an email server for 150 people in our family and friends circles.

It is one hundred times more expensive than industrial hosting but, if you know what you want there is only one way to get it.

<comment><USER9> I mostly like being able to manage my email as files. Can't do "tar zcf /backup/mail.tar.gz ~/mail" on GMail.

<comment><USER10> getmail, fetchmail, etc.

<comment><USER9> At that point though, I feel like you're already taking most all of the risks of hosting your own mail, and also taking all the risks of going through public webmail. Worst of both worlds sort of thing. So you might as well host yourself at that point :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The issue is not whether or not FBI should be able to do something like this, but they should be following more strict procedures, and they should always need a warrant and "probably cause". It's pretty scary that the FBI can get all this information about someone just because there's a 10th degree relationship between someone they were following and you.

But this case was pretty horrible to begin with. It seems FBI was only doing this as a "favor" to someone, and it wasn't about finding evidence about Petraeus having an affair, that enemies could've exploited, because they weren't aware about this, and they only found it by mistake.

All I'm saying is that the Government having this kind of power doesn't represent the "land of the free" very well, that US is supposed to be, and it has a lot more in common with a dictatorship/totalitarian state than with a true democratic republic.

It seems to me that technology is making it irresistible for Governments all over the world, whether democratic or not, to want to spy on their citizens and know everything about them. The lure of absolute and all-knowing power is very tempting, the easier it gets with new technology.

If this doesn't become a real political issue, and is not stopped, I could easily envision how 30-40 years from now, when technology will make it possible for people to interact with technology through mind control, it will also be very easy technologically wise to see what people are thinking, and the Governments will no doubt want to easily access that, too.

There's already another scary trend starting to show-up - that of pre-crime recognition, although it's still in its very early stages. But imagine when we'll start to use quantum computers. Those computers could easily create all the needed statistics and possibilities to show how likely someone is to commit a crime in the near future, and I could see the government and law enforcement agencies wanting to use that. I think we've all read the reports of NYPD police raiding the OWS leaders a night before the protests were supposed to happen. This is not mere unlikely theory. It's already happening, just on a much smaller scale.

It would simply be irresistible to them at the time, just like they love being able to obtain all the data about you without a warrant right now, and they'd love if it they could do even more without a warrant, and are lobbying for these types of laws in Congress. The only way to stop these sort of trends is for people to take a stand, and vote for people who are against them.

<comment><USER9> _the Government having this kind of power doesn't represent the "land of the free" very well_

An interesting thought springs to mind. Being free, and the government knowing what you are up to, are not _inherently_ at odds. This is a good thing, as hiding things is only going to get more difficult as technology progresses. Rather than fighting to keep one's deeds (or misdeeds) secret, perhaps we should be fighting to make it such that it doesn't matter if the government knows?

<comment><USER12> The government is made of people. So just replace "government" with "other random people" in your thought above, and see if it makes sense to you.

To me, it IS "inherently at odds".

edit: to expand on this - information easily leaks from government employees who have been authorized to access it. Especially when it is so easy to get, and is so broad, then a private investigator is likely to find a government employee who would copy the files about person-of-interest-X in return for $1000, for almost every X.

For just one additional lookup a week, that employee can make an additional $50,000 tax free with negligible chance of getting caught (with today's nonexistent oversight) except if the resulting leak happens to become a news item.

So, realistically also replace "government" with "any willing person with $2000 to spare" (the private investigator will also take a cut :) )

<comment><USER13> This. To me, Silverstorm's comment seems to be along the line of thinking of "If you've got nothing to hide, then why do you care what they know about you?"

<comment><USER9> Sort of backwards from that. The counter argument to "If you've got nothing to hide..." usually revolves around the fact that you're always breaking laws, just because we have such a tangled legal system. So if you fix the legal system, then there's no cause for worry.

Yes, there's the privacy issue, but I'd bet that could be handled.

<comment><USER14> No, the counter-argument to "If you've got nothing to hide" is that there are lots of perfectly legal things that you don't want other people to know. Maybe you're gay and you don't want your parents to know. Maybe you don't want your abusive ex-husband to know where you live. The more people that know a secret, the harder it is to keep.

Remember, the government doesn't know anything, people working for the government know things, and the more people that know a secret, the harder it is to keep.

<comment><USER9> Right, so that's the privacy part. It seems to me like that ought to be addressable- there's already plenty of people who become privy to private information for this or that reason, and it is very rare it becomes a problem.

Unless the system is significantly improved, yes, it probably entails some increased risk to your personal secrets. But to immediately shut down any suggestions of increasing government application of tech on those grounds seems short-sighted and selfish. There are positive outcomes, too! I'm not saying "forget about privacy, it doesn't matter", but rather "shouldn't we try to work a compromise?". Find a balance, where any increase in risk to personal privacy is counterbalanced by a respectable improvement in the capabilities of government to operate effectively. If we are stoic and immovable on the issue, we just impair our own government when we limit them to 20th century technology.

<comment><USER12> The main fallacy of your argument is that you assume you can somehow prevent corruption by technical measures, when the only lesson you can take from history is that government corruption is a question of "when" and "how", not "if". And you're saying "it might be useful" without offering even a single example. (In general you need at least two example to generalize from, you know)

Could you actually give examples where more government knowledge is helpful? Strike "crime fighting" out, because e.g. London's MET police, and the FBI already have almost-all-knowing access to data, and all reports say it doesn't help at all.

In the 2nd half of the 20th century, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, are full of examples of why government knowledge of everything is bad.

Assume government knows _everything_ you do, all is fine, and then one day, Hollywood gets a law that says you can't watch a DVD with friends (you each have to own an independent copy, so that they get paid). Bam, instant enforcement the next day, because the government knows everything. An almost- as-ridiculous law was almost passed (the recent ACTA treaty), and it's not a coincidence that demonstrations in Europe (especially former eastern block, who have actual experience with that) were far more numerous and vocal than in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is beyond scary, we all basically live in a police state now and their is nothing we can do about it. Schneier's last line just about sums it up...

<comment><USER6> Please. This is nothing compared to what the FBI did from their inception until the late 1970s. If this happens 40 years ago you might find out about it 5 to 7 years after it occurred.

<comment><USER12> While I agree with what you are saying, it's like saying "ha, your fatty liver isn't serious. Some people get cancer!". The fact that the FBI was even more horrible until the 1970s doesn't make the current situation any less scary.</comment></comment></comment>


British scientist 'solves' mystery of Himalayan yetis - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24564487 <comment><USER2> One one hand you could call this "debunking." On the other hand if it's true it demonstrates that many of the people who claimed to see Yetis were not stoned, drunk, hallucinating, making things up, or misidentifying something completely ordinary. They really did in fact see something that looked very strange to them.

That's one of my pet peeves with some skeptics. People are not _that_ stupid. I do believe many people who claim to have seen UFOs, for example. I don't necessarily think they're aliens or whatever, but I do believe people have seen very odd things in the sky that defy easy explanation.

<comment><USER3> It is easy to misidentify something ordinary when it is somewhere you don't expect it:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lone-cow-hikes- blo...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lone-cow-hikes-blomidon- provincial-park-for-several-weeks-1.2075296)

For a few weeks, Park officers were getting calls about a black bear in Blomidon Provincial Park but it turns out that what the people saw was an escaped cow.

It's not that those people were necessarily stupid (though some might be), but it doesn't mean they've seen anything peculiar just that they believed they had.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does higher pay offer on exiting a job reveal employee's real value? - <AUTHOR> A scenario: an employee, Orion, is announcing to exit a job in a company, RapidData, due to monetary reason.
On announcing the exit, Orion is being offered 180% of current pay if he decides to stay in RapidData. Orion's responsibility will not change because of the raise.
Does this indicate that:
1.) Orion's value has been 180% of current pay the whole time
OR
2.) Orion's value rose because of scarcity based on supply-demand law? <comment><USER2> To answer your question, no it doesn't.

Generally it is never that simple and there are a variety of factors that go into this.

Let's assume the company gives Orion that offer, it could be that Orion's true market rate is 200% (or more) or it could be that Orion's market rate is really 160% but they value the employee and can't afford to lose them so they are trying to make it attractive.

Almost always Orion's accepting of the counter offer from the existing employer is a mistake. Many employers that make the counter offer will be less trusting of the employee in the long term and will be looking for a way to reduce the employee's value. There are exceptions on both sides of course, but rarely is accepting a counter offer from an existing employer a good idea. I had an employer offer me 1.5x one time to stay, I left for a job paying me only 1.3x. More money doesn't change the situation generally why you are leaving, and if an employer lets you get that far behind market they aren't valuing you properly and are just waiting for you to call them out.

What I usually suggest to people is they need to negotiate every year for more money as a matter of process. This reduces the need to get a competing offer to just get a raise. Then the only reason you leave generally is because you find at the first year the company is cheap or over time you just don't want to work there anymore because of whatever other issues. Employers see this method much differently than an employee that job shops and tries to bend them over a barrel with an ultimatum.

<comment><USER3> As you said, there are exceptions. I accepted my current employer's counter offer which was less than the new job. I'm still here over three years later and have been promoted and am dramatically over what the original offer from the other employer was. It worked out doubly well for me as the other employer later folded and my equity at my current employer has been life changing.

You have to evaluate the reasons for why you would leave or stay beyond just a paycheck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It primarily reflects how hard it is and how much time it costs to replace the employee. The employer needs the employee to stay on until they've hired a replacement, and can afford to pay extra for a limited time.

If you accept this offer, prepare to get fired as soon as they've found your replacement. If you think this might be your actual value to the company, ask them to make that raise retroactive from a year ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is if Orion's position is replacable. Holding a project "hostage" because the project has only enough manpower.

What if the company intends to keep Orion because the company knows that Orion, even though not holding any "hostage" situation, is accelerating the growth of the company?

<comment><USER4> Then they would have given that raise earlier and wouldn't have waited until Orion was already ready to leave. The company is also not going to rely long term on someone who already has expressed a desire to leave. They will still look for a replacement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Marxists make a distinction between "value" and "worth." The words are synonymous in English but etymologically different. Value is of French (or Latin) origin and is related to valew and valour. Worth comes from the Germanic words wert and werd. You can hear when you pronounce "value" and "worth" how different they sound.

To Marxists, "value" is extrinsic and subjective. "Worth" is intrinsic and objective.

Did Orion's worth increase by the threat of quitting? Clearly not. He or she didn't suddenly become a better developer, thus his or her work output didn't suddenly become worth much more. Did Orion's value increase by the threat of quitting? Clearly so. The valuation of his or her work output suddenly increased by 80%!

Marxists then make the point that our society focus way to much on the "value" of things, which often is nonsensical, when we instead should focus on what things are "worth."

<comment><AUTHOR> > The words are synonymous in English but etymologically different. Value is > of French (or Latin) origin and is related to valew and valour. Worth comes > from the Germanic words wert and werd. You can hear when you pronounce > "value" and "worth" how different they sound.

I learned a new thing today :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's really hard to gauge value in the software industry. A company may make $0 on some code today, $5000 on the same code next year, and $50 mil 10 years after that. Assuming Orion is writing this code, is he worth $0, $2500/year, or $5 mil/year?

It's part of a team effort - testers, marketing, management, investors, HR, finance, even the janitor who keeps Orion from taking a day off to vacuum the office and clean the toilets.

I think freelancing comes as close to true value as possible. You abstract out a portion of work to someone, who handles it for a certain value. That someone also mops their own floors, does their own taxes, registers a company, deals with regulations, deals with their own insurance, manages their own motivation, and so on. They often outsource this too - maids, co-working spaces, plumbers, personal health insurance, etc.

Freelancers request about 1-10 times the average rate. This varies by location, e.g. companies with good public healthcare and lower taxes might have a lower multiplier.

But if you live in a location where full time freelancers normally request 4x wages, it's likely Orions max value is closer to 4x his total compensation.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It's part of a team effort - testers, marketing, management, investors, HR, > finance, even the janitor who keeps Orion from taking a day off to vacuum > the office and clean the toilets.

Doesn't it portray more of the company's value rather than Orion's value?

<comment><USER6> Yes, but Orion's present value is no higher than the company, or specifically his team. If the company makes $5000/year and has no hope of making more than $5000/year, then Orion's value is no higher than $5000/year. If a recession hits, and Orion makes do as a waiter, Orion's value drops even with the same skills.

A nail costs a few cents but the value is dependent on the product it is used in. If the price of a nail goes up to $10, it's likely people will stop using it for decorations, and only for expensive furniture and buildings. The value of the nail is still higher than $10 as long as it is used that way.

But the nail keeps to a low price because it can be used in so many low value things. Most nails are worth only a few cents. And most programmers are only worth maybe $10k a year or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Value is decided by the market. If Orion is leaving due to monetary reasons then it would seem that Orion has already been made aware of an opportunity which places a higher value on their work.

In this example, there are two markets to consider; RapidData and everyone else.

We know that Orion is worth more to everyone else, but that's no guarantee that they're worth 180% of their current pay. RapidData may be willing to pay out more in the short-term because of the opportunity cost associated with replacing Orion and keeping the business running in the interim.

So, I'd say it's mostly #2.

In practice though, if you wanted to leave before the raise; then you'll probably still want to leave after. The only difference being, that now your company is actively making sure they're not caught in this situation again. You will be judged more harshly and in the event that 180% does exceed your "everyone else" market value, you will eventually be let go or made to quit.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are many possible reasons:

1.) Orions value rose because he is about to walk out the door with all sorts of important information in his head. Often times, a counter offer is made to lessen the risk of information loss, with longer term plans to move Orion out of the company, or lessen his impact.

2.) His boss looks really bad if he quits, especially if he is a high performing employee. So the boss has every incentive to keep him on.

3.) Short term high profile project has a huge business cost if not completed, Orion is not worth that much, except for in the next few months</comment>


A list of Google's corporate Active Directory users - <AUTHOR> http://andrisatteka.blogspot.com/2013/11/scanning-for-googles-active-directory.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting find! Out of curiosity, what was the content of the emails you sent and how exactly did they bring you to uncover these workstation names?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a dummy e-mail. You'll get back either an error response or the IP address of the machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Whats the point of disclosing this information?

<comment><USER4> I'd imagine if you were to gain access to the Google internal network, now you have a list of machines that are more than likely running a common software platform you can apply a list of known exploits against. Directory servers also may have elevated privileges or trust relationships that can be spoofed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> haha :D nice hack.</comment>


Show HN:  Here's a demo of my Visual CSS Animation Tool: Edit Room - <AUTHOR>

Hello Hackers!
I was going to post this as a comment on a recent javascript anim library thread, (Firmin) but then figured it deserved it's own thread...
Anyway, I'd like to share with you all what I've been working on for the past few months: Edit Room - the CSS Visual Animation Designer.  http://editroom.splatcollision.com
It's a prototype of a browser-based visual css animation tool.  It's a completely JavaScript front end with much of the design of the interface done by me in Edit Room itself.
Drop your email in the form if you like, but if you don't care to hear more about this in the future from me, you can still check out the prototype by following the direct link below the form.
Next steps are to accept paid users (bootstrap FTW!) and provide the ability to save screens, semantically markup the generated html, and integrate multiple screens into an entire website.  Also coming are nested sequences, animated masks, and whatever else CSS brings to the table.  I've only implemented a relatively small set of possible CSS features so far, but it's enough to do useful work already.
NB: Since the animation engine is completely dependent on the CSS3 Animation spec, browsers that don't implement that spec cannot yet use this tool :(  I'm looking at an alternate animation engine that sequences CSS Transitions (remarkably similar concept to Firmin), but it's not there yet.  Priorities are those listed above.
Comments welcome!  Would love to hear from animators and visual designers especially - what is missing here that would get in the way of you doing all your web design work in a tool like this?
Thanks!
Kevin <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://editroom.splatcollision.com></comment>


Impossible Foods - <AUTHOR> http://impossiblefoods.com/ <comment><USER2> Why did Tesla become so big? There had been electric cars earlier, but they were bad.

The question is, who minds that it's electric? That's not so relevant. It just has to be _a better car_ than a regular car.</comment>


Guardian Chief: UK Had Newspaper Disks Destroyed - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/guardian-chief-uk-spies-shredded-newsroom-disks-20005726

<comment><USER2> Just read the original:

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-m...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david- miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters)

He had the drives destroyed after noting to the Whitehall guys that it would do nothing: "a peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age."

<comment><USER3> It was probably a compromise after the spooks asked for the disks to be handed over.

Destroying them doesn't prevent the data from being in other places but it prevents that copy of the data from getting into other peoples hands e.g. what happens if those laptops get stolen?</comment></comment>


Bragging about being one of the best Lotus Notes devs - <AUTHOR>

I just heard a guy bragging in his cubicle: "I'm one of the top four Lotus Notes developers in Ontario." He's wearing suspenders. What should I do? <comment><USER2> I dunno maybe this [http://www.robichaux.net/blog/2008/02/ferris-research- lotus-...](http://www.robichaux.net/blog/2008/02/ferris-research-lotus-notes- has-10-marke.php)

Or maybe nothing and just get back to work ;-). Devs brag about lots of things.</comment>